Words we don't say
Banned Books week easter eggs inside!
I went into this book thinking it would be somewhat like "To All The Boys I've Loved Before" by Jenny Han. I'm not sure why. Maybe the unsent letters/text premise?
Boy, I could not have been more off! "Words We Don't Say" first kind of seems to meander around the soup kitchen and Joel and then we find out about Eli and then his deceased friend, etc. All of the wandering DOES have a purpose though as we reaching about half-way through. That's when it all really starts coming together.
I happened to read this book during Banned Books Week so the scene at school where Benj (he's a troubled kiddo who snags Joel's attention) questions why they are reading "gay" books. (His words.) The teacher takes that and makes it into a great learning opportunity about how lucky we are to have the freedom to read what they want and how they don't have this freedom in many other countries! They even LIST all of the countries. That, plus the discussion about trigger warnings (which made me feel a little uncomfortable to be honest), were very cool Easter Eggs for Banned Books Week.
There are A LOT of issues discussed in this book: veterans, death, grief, homelessness, hunger, God, intellectual freedom, and crushes. At times, it felt like a little "much". Then, I remembered, you know what? Life can be a little "much". It's very realistic. So I had to tell myself to get out of my own head and into Joel's. This book would be an interesting conversation-starter.
What's on the back?
(The book's description from Goodreads)
Joel Higgins has 901 unsent text messages saved on his phone.
Ever since the thing that happened, there are certain people he hasn't been able to talk to in person. Sure, he shows up at school, does his mandatory volunteer hours at the soup kitchen, and spends pretty much every moment thinking about Eli, the most amazing girl in the world. But that doesn't mean he's keeping it together, or even that he has any friends.
So instead of hanging out with people in real life, he drafts text messages. But he never presses send.
As dismal as sophomore year was for Joel, he doesn't see how junior year will be any better. For starters, Eli doesn't know how he feels about her, his best friend Andy's gone, and he basically bombed the SATs. But as Joel spends more time at the soup kitchen with Eli and Benj, the new kid whose mouth seems to be unconnected to his brain, he forms bonds with the people they serve there-including a veteran they call Rooster-and begins to understand that the world is bigger than his own pain.